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Congrats to Western New England College's School of Law, which last week unveiled a new $5.5 million addition to the school's S. Prestley Blake Law Center. It marks a major expansion to the Springfield, Mass. campus. From the release:

The expanded Law Center includes a new 10,500-square-foot wing and entrance that provides a gateway to the rest of the campus. The entrance, with its soaring marble pillars, leads to a two-story lobby that serves as a primary gathering space for students and the hosting of Law Center events. "This Law School is a dynamic place; new ideas march through its halls with breathtaking pace," said Dean Arthur R. Gaudio. "We needed an equally dynamic venue where professors and visiting scholars could present those ideas to collected groups of students and faculty."

Besides the new addition, the biggest change students and visitors will notice is the restructured law library, which now extends to all three floors of the Law Center. Along with the new space comes a new user-friendly way of accessing library materials, with patrons able to take most books out of the library area and into any part of the Law Center. "You can go in and out of the library and into the Law School at any level," said Gaudio. "The Law Library is now as large as the entire Law School building." Western New England College School of Law is one of only a few schools in the country to try this cutting edge approach to access. Materials must still be checked out to leave the building, with sensors at the exits to the building monitoring the library's collection.